About Alex Daigle

Alex lives in the Canadian city Montreal. He is a creative writer and visual story teller. He studied Environment and Religious Studies. Now that he is graduated, he travels, takes photos and writes. He also spends his time as a farmer. A barefoot farmer, to be precise.

He started writing poetry, because this he needed some way to crystallize his thoughts and emotions. He found that poetry fitted that gap, that need. He found his way to express his thoughts, using his poems.

About the poem

The description that Alex provided is both cryptic and beautiful:

“This poem expresses the two-edged sword of freedom and responsibility that are part of being and becoming. “

In this poem, the poet (Alex) writes about what he is. This can be both; creating and discovering. Or exploring or just being lead. It is all up to what the poet feels comfortable with. Isn’t that a very good lesson to be learned from this poem?

Creature of habits

I am a creature of habits.
I shape-shift into whatever becomes
my repeated daily practice.

I am as much the gardener as I am the seed:
from the soil that host my roots
to the sun that touches my leaves,
I grow to become the sum
of all the parts on which I feed.

I am as much the sculptor as I am the sculpture:
either soft as a pebble or hard as a boulder,
cracked or intact,
I carve and am carved by my own
incisive decisions and routines.

I am as much the healer as I am the disease:
through attentive care
or heedless neglect,
I create a place to relax and rest
or invite in sickness and distress.

I am as much the master as I am the slave:
unyielding, persistent, and resolved,
I feel strong–I can conquer myself at will.
Slumbered, compliant, and meek,
I feel weak–I bow servant to the whims of the wind.

I am as much the creator as I am the creation:
as alchemist of self-transformation
and magician of manifestation,
I can transmute into the purest of diamond
or degenerate into the coarsest of carbon.

I am a creature of habits…
I shape-shift into whatever I choose
to be my repeated daily practice.